JESUS AND THE BARKING DOG

At the heart of prayer is persistence and humility. The Gospel passage from Matthew 15:21-28, read next Sunday, illustrates the extent to which a person will go to secure what he/she needs from a beneficent, all-loving God. Jesus has withdrawn to Tyre and Sidon prior to His passion and death. He is approached by a Canaanite woman whose ethnic background is repulsive to a faithful Jew. The Syro-Phoenicians, as they are properly called, were known to sacrifice their children in the fiery mouths of their great bronze idols of Baal and Moloch. The woman asks that Jesus deliver her daughter from demonic possession. The daughter is broken and doomed. The mother is desperate. The attendant disciples are annoyed that she bothers the Lord (and themselves!) – yet she persists. She is, in a word, indefatigable.  At first, Jesus appears indifferent and seemingly ignores her. Then He apparently insults her. The rest of the story needs telling.

St. Gregory Palamas preaches of the unflagging entreaty that the woman made to Jesus: “The Canaanite woman did not merely come out from those heathen coasts, but sprang up from the valleys like a sacred lily, exhaling with her words the fragrance of the divine Spirit from her mouth.” (Homily 43) That Jesus was moved with compassion for the troubled woman there is no doubt. There were, however, obstacles. He was a Jew, she a Syro-Phoenician. He proclaims that he has been sent to the children of Israel and it is unseemly to take the children’s bread and “throw it to the dogs!”  The woman was not deterred by the Lord’s apparent harshness. She quickly retorted “…but even the dogs get their share of the crumbs which fall from the master’s table.” When she needs help for her daughter, the humble woman begs for it. She swallows her nationalistic pride and centuries of mutual animosity, prostrates herself before Jesus and utters the simple phrase “Lord, help me! (15:25)  As Fr. Stanley Harakas, noted Biblical scholar, observes: “But while we may be shocked by Christ calling the woman a dog, however fitting a moral description of her people it may be, He who knows all things knew her heart, saw her humility, and wanted to test her to reveal her amazing virtue and persistence before all for centuries to come.” (Reflections on Living the Christian Life)  Ever the rabbi, Jesus knew well the lesson He taught those impatient disciples.

The woman rises above insult, keeps fixed on her daughter’s deliverance, subjugates her “self” and her pride, and persists. When she was treated with contempt and heard herself called not just an irrational animal but a dirty and fierce one, whose voice was a dog’s bark rather than human speech worth listening to, she agreed and joined in ridiculing herself, but did not cease to entreat Christ.  It was this persistence coupled with humility (subjugating the self), that elicited from the Rabbi from Nazareth healing and hope for her daughter. A harsh lesson turned into a redemptive moment. It was this perdurance that moved the Son of God to enter the dark and festering precincts of the girl’s soul to drive from it Satan and all his despair-teaching minions. The lesson is seminal for us in our Orthodox life.  Again, the holy Palamas counsels: “Let us learn from this teacher with how much patience, humility and assiduity (persistence) we must have in our prayers. Even if we are unworthy and even if we are sent away with sins, let us not turn back, but keep humbly asking from our soul. We shall receive our requests from God.” (Homily 43)  Jesus taught through this encounter lessons about persistence in prayer, about the fact that God never ever wearies of our prayers, tires of our entreaties, or becomes deaf to our cries – never!   He is a God who hears us because He is a God who loves us!

Let’s face it – prayer can be difficult. Asking God for anything raises natural uncertainties and perhaps even doubts. In an age when we push a button on a phone or hit a computer key and instantaneously receive more answers than we know what to do with, questions can arise: Does God actually “hear” me? Is he disposed to my requests, knowing the secrets of my heart and soul as He does? Am I asking too much, do I expect too much, and how exactly do I anticipate receiving my answer? There are perhaps times when we look back and see life as a panoply of “unanswered prayers” and think: Is God deaf to my cries? At any rate, what takes God so long – how can He leave me flailing about? The secret is this: what is most important for us is not necessarily that we receive what we ask for, in the form we want it, in the time we need it, or that we find what we search for, or walk through the door we’re knocking on. Rather, what is most important is that we, like that frantic Canaanite mother in the Gospel, discover the closeness of God in the asking and in the waiting, by persistence, by never giving up, and in a humble spirit – surrendering our ego-wants, letting go of all that is not our life’s focus and our heart’s true treasure. It is in this encounter with God, however uneasy it may make us feel,  that our cries will be heard, our thirst will be slaked, and we will feel Him draw closer to us. In the ambiguity of simply asking and waiting, He will intrude on the oft’ shakey ground of our soul by His Divine Light and cast the sinister shadows from us. By combining the desire of Zacchaeus and the persistence and humility of the Canaanite mother, you and I can know that God is listening – indeed He knew our needs before ever they came to our lips.

With this gift of intimacy with God through persistent prayer, God sometimes gives us the spiritual hug we need when we’re lonely or rejected; or the state of joy by simply being alive; or the courage required to face a situation at home, in my marriage, on the job, facing illness, or in school, whether we are able-bodied or are feeling the effects of having run the race for a long time. Persistence and humility allow us to grow to realize that our true wealth is not seen in terms of what we do not have, rather, it is in what we have already been given. It is not in the prayers He answered only, but in those prayers that “seem” to have passed God by – that bring us back with full hearts to again “lift up our eyes to the mountains, whence cometh our salvation.” (Psalm 121) As the Prophet Isaiah wrote: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts nor are you ways my ways, (Isaiah 55:8) God answers us in a variety of ways, by a number of means, often unexpectedly – revealing Himself as the God of true surprises.

The Syro-Phoenician woman faced a choice. She kept after Christ. She ignored the disciples’ attempt to dismiss and get rid of her. She had no guarantee that her efforts would produce the desired end – but it didn’t matter — she had the heart of a mother. There was a little girl at home whose very survival was linked to the ability that mother had to seek out the Christ and beg for his healing, and thereby give herself over to Him in pure faith. Her persistence and humility became her act of faith in the Son of God and Lord of history. The compassionate Lord was moved in love to embrace her with the words: “O woman! Great is Thy faith! Be it done for you as you desire. Her daughter was healed at that very moment.” (Matthew 1528) Heart spoke unto heart and love saw the face of love. That same Lord stands ready today, in the now of your life, to hear your cries. Don’t give up – ever. Endure the waiting — always. He will respond to you in His good measure – the “barking dog” is never silent.

Your servant in the Lord,

Fr. Dimitrios